Faculty Book: Gerald Sider

Gerald Sider

Living Indian Histories: Lumbee and Tuscarora People in North Carolina
(University of North Carolina Press, 2003; 384 pp.)

The Lumbee Indians are the ninth largest tribe in the U.S., with 40,000 registered members, and the largest east of the Mississippi; however, they lack full federal recognition, and their history has been marked by a struggle to articulate an Indian identity. Gerald Sider explores the complexities of Lumbee tribal identity, focusing on the tribe's socioeconomic and political history from the 1960s through the 1980s and looking back to colonial roots of present issues, including the relationship between the Lumbee and Tuscarora people of Robeson County, North Carolina. In an extensive preface to this new edition—an earlier version was published in 1993—Sider brings the story forward to include changes since the 1980s. Sider is professor of anthropology at the College of Staten Island and The Graduate Center.